**Chap­ter 24: Duck Boy Sum­ma­ry**

The chap­ter opens with Paper’s famous sweet pota­to pie bring­ing togeth­er Nate, Addie, Rusty, Fat­ty, and Miggy, who arrives late from work at Pennhurst. Upon enter­ing, Miggy’s pro­fes­sion­al demeanor con­trasts with her past as an ora­cle on Hem­lock Row, prompt­ing an imme­di­ate con­nec­tion with Nate. After some light ban­ter, Miggy shares her per­spec­tive on her life and work at the hos­pi­tal. She describes her­self as a “clean­er” of both spaces and peo­ple, main­ly men, elab­o­rat­ing on the emo­tion­al toll her job takes on her as she wit­ness­es the suf­fer­ing of the patients there.

Despite the light-heart­ed con­ver­sa­tion, an under­cur­rent of seri­ous­ness looms as Miggy delves deep­er into the hor­rif­ic real­i­ties of Pennhurst, shar­ing expe­ri­ences of neglect, fear, and abuse faced by the patients, includ­ing the trag­ic sto­ry of a boy known as “Duck Boy,” who quacked instead of speak­ing. His jour­ney reflects the hor­rors of the insti­tu­tion, as he faced mal­treat­ment that led to his being placed in the dread­ed C‑1 ward. Miggy shows her con­nec­tion and empa­thy for the patients, vow­ing that their spir­its deserve care, while express­ing deep anger toward the cor­rupt atten­dants rul­ing the wards, includ­ing a man known as Son of Man.

Fur­ther, she men­tions the con­tra­dic­tions of the phys­i­cal space the patients inhab­it as well as their psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ment. In doing so, Miggy express­es a yearn­ing for jus­tice and deliv­er­ance, not just for her­self, but espe­cial­ly for the vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren. She reflects on a lit­tle boy’s dis­ap­pear­ance, sug­gest­ing that he may have escaped through tun­nels report­ed­ly hid­den beneath Pennhurst, link­ing her idea of hope to the idea of those tun­nels being a gate­way to free­dom.

Even­tu­al­ly, the dis­cus­sion cir­cles back to the “Egg Man,” who brings eggs and cof­fee for the patients every morn­ing, high­light­ing the logis­ti­cal absur­di­ties of the hos­pi­tal. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a tense atmos­phere as Miggy reveals the ongo­ing pres­ence of Son of Man, empha­siz­ing the com­plex­i­ties of patient care in a sys­tem that seems designed to fail. The chap­ter ends with Nate’s silent con­tem­pla­tion about the echoes of the lives trapped with­in Pennhurst, and a sym­bol­ic focus on the com­mu­nal hope car­ried with­in that gath­er­ing space, sig­ni­fied by the sweet pota­to pie.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

S
24
Duck Boy
weet pota­to pie was the bait. Every­body on the Hill knew Paper
cooked it like no tomor­row. So assem­bling Nate, Addie, Rusty, and
Fat­ty at the table in her kitchen two days after vis­it­ing Miggy on Hem­lock
Row was easy. But get­ting Miggy, who worked at Pennhurst sev­en miles
away, was more dif­fi­cult.
She was the last to arrive. She came by bus, and when she walked in, the
ora­cle of Hem­lock Row that Paper had seen dressed to the nines the
pre­vi­ous week was gone. In her place was a neat­ly clad health care
atten­dant dressed all in white—white dress, shoes, and stock­ings. She
moved with the air of a pro­fes­sion­al, with qui­et con­fi­dence, until her gaze
hit Nate seat­ed at the table sip­ping cof­fee.
She froze in the door­way.
“You didn’t tell me who was com­ing, Paper,” she said.
“Miggy, we’re fam­i­ly here.”
Miggy hes­i­tat­ed a moment longer, then took a seat next to Fat­ty at the far
end of the table. “This pie bet­ter be worth it,” she said.
“It is,” Paper said, quick­ly pulling the warm­ing pie out of the stove and
chat­ting to smooth mat­ters out. “Miggy here works at Pennhurst,” she told
the oth­ers. “She tells futures, too.”
“Can you tell mine?” Fat­ty piped up.
“No, but I could blind you,” Miggy said.
It was as if a bar­rel of sar­dines had sud­den­ly fall­en from the ceil­ing, for
Fatty’s smile van­ished. Paper thought she saw a faint, thin smile work its
way across Nate’s lips as Fat­ty sat back, cowed. “I’d rather you didn’t do
that, miss,” he said.
Miggy chuck­led. “Not with a spell, hon­ey. I drink with my pinkie out.
Every time I sip, I blind the per­son set­ting to my right. You serv­ing cof­fee
with that pie, Paper?”
Paper chuck­led as she turned to grab cups from the cup­board while
Miggy took a deep breath, held her hands out to admire her nails, cleared
her throat, and final­ly said cool­ly, “I’ll try not to be so big a fool as to
imag­ine that you remem­bers me, Mr. Nate.”
“You was but a knee-high child back in them years, but yes, I remem­bers
you. And your dad­dy, too. I heard he passed,” Nate said.
“He always liked you. You done us a ser­vice over at the Row is how he
felt about mat­ters,” Miggy said.
“Ain’t no prof­it in going into that now,” Nate said. “That’s all done and
over with. Paid in full.”
Fat­ty felt a slight ici­cle slice through his gut and found him­self spin­ning
back to Grater­ford, remem­ber­ing Dirt, his old cell­mate, telling him, “I
wouldn’t cross old Nate for all the mon­ey in the world.” What had Nate
done over in Hem­lock Row? What was all paid for?
He would’ve drift­ed fur­ther in that thought had not Paper laid slices of
pie in front of every­one and said, “Miggy, we ask you to come on account
of—”
Miggy cut her off. “The who-shot-John part of your mess ain’t my
busi­ness,” she said. “I don’t want to know. ’Cause when the white man lays
down his lying laws, he dines on the lie part of that fat meat while you and I
get turned this way and that munch­ing on the truth part. How­so­ev­er that
meal ends, when the table is cleared, one or more of us will like­ly leave
hun­gry. I just come to talk about my life.
“I’m speak­ing about what hap­pens to me from the time the sun goes up
to when it goes back to rest. It all goes togeth­er, my life. And if there’s
any­thing you can learn from my life that might help you in what­ev­er that
cause may be, well, that’s all the bet­ter, for I live in a land that don’t want
me. My job is to try to live right, which to me means com­ing over here after
work to get a piece of sweet pota­to pie, which I favors, with an old friend
and some of her peo­ple.”
She dug into her pie, cut­ting a bite. “Now, while I’m eat­ing this pie,
should I hap­pen to talk about my job can’t nobody tell me lat­er that I
planned up some back­door, unjust non­sense to hurt this or that part of the
good state of Penn­syl­va­nia. And if I was to tell some­one what they might
do or do not do in a place that hap­pens to toss me a few coins every week
for my ser­vices, there ain’t no law against that to my know­ing. That’s the
truth, which is how I try to live. It’s how all God-fear­ing peo­ple should try
to live.”
“All right then,” Paper said. “What’s your job?”
“I’m a clean­er,” Miggy said. “I cleans things. I cleans my house. I cleans
out­side my house and inside. I cleans the yard and the kitchen and all
man­ner of things. On the job, I cleans beds, and bed pans, and peo­ple.
Most­ly peo­ple. Most­ly men. I don’t like work­ing with the women on my
job. Some of ’em are nas­ti­er than the men. They throw things at you—their
waste and all. The men ain’t no both­er, real­ly.”
She care­ful­ly lift­ed the bite of her pie, raised it to her face, and peered at
it.
Fat­ty couldn’t stand it. “Are you gonna write a ser­mon on that thing ’fore
you eat it?” he asked.
Paper shot Fat­ty an icy look. “Don’t mind him, Miggy. Some­times real
thoughts work their way up to his mouth.”
“It’s all right.” She turned to Fat­ty. “It’s my pie, hon­ey. You against me
eat­ing it like I want?”
“Not at all. But I’ll be in the cack­le­house if I have to set here wait­ing for
you to tell us a way to do uh … what Paper wants done.”
“Is it just Paper that wants it to be done?”
Fat­ty fell silent. He felt Nate’s eyes bor­ing into him. He cleared his
throat. “I’m here ’cause Paper asked me to come,” he said.
“And I’m here to eat pie,” Miggy said. “And I will do it in the man­ner I
please.” She placed the fork­ful of sweet pota­to pie in her mouth, chewed
slow­ly, swal­lowed, then con­tin­ued.
“Now there’s man’s under­stand­ing and there’s women’s under­stand­ing.
There is white folks’ under­stand­ing and Negroes’ under­stand­ing. And then
there is just plain wis­dom. Every child that breathes their first on this earth
will dri­ve their fist through the air and strike noth­ing. But all chil­dren are
born with will. I was not a par­tic­u­lar­ly will­ful child nor a par­tic­u­lar­ly smart
one. I was raised on the Row. I’m a Low­god. We is raised to believe that for
any child to be right­eous, it must have a love for those things which brings
knowl­edge. Before I come to Pennhurst, I laun­dered, which is how I come
to know Paper here. After I got tired of laun­der­ing, I did days work for a
white fam­i­ly over in Penns­bury. The father was a judge. His wife was lazy
and weak-willed. They were both trained to ease and unjust. An unjust
par­ent will raise an unjust child who is a snare to right­eous­ness. The truth
is, I raised their child more than they did, but I did not raise him long. For if
I was to raise a child, I would teach that child to love what I love and hate
what I hate. That is why your col­ored from Hem­lock Row are not good day
work­ers. We are too close to the earth. We bang the drum of the old coun­try
too much. Even our church is dif­fer­ent. We don’t sing with a piano. We
chant the old songs and dance in cir­cles, and we don’t cross our feet when
we dance, for that is world­ly danc­ing. Why we do these things, I do not
know. It’s one of the many things passed down to us from the old peo­ple.
But it makes us odd and strange, even to some of our own peo­ple, like y’all
on this Hill.
“Your basic Low­god from the Row is all from the same blood­line. Same
father and moth­er from many years past when we was first brung to this
land. How that worked out, why the Low­gods come to the Row from the
Low Coun­try, and who mar­ried one anoth­er and so forth, I do not know, for
the old peo­ple don’t favor talk­ing about yes­ter­day. But there ain’t but two
fam­i­lies on the Row. The Low­gods and the Loves. Most­ly Low­gods. The
Loves”—and here she cast a quick glance at Nate—“there ain’t many Loves
left.”
And once again Fat­ty felt his mem­o­ry spin­ning back to Grater­ford. “Nate
Love,” Dirt had said. Nate was a Love, from the Love fam­i­ly. He couldn’t
resist. “What hap­pened to the Loves?” he asked. He was afraid to even look
at Nate.
Miggy shook her head. “That’s a sto­ry that I do not know the whole of.
The Low­gods and Loves are not that dif­fer­ent. They are close in nature.
They trav­el straight on. They can­not dri­ve a side road or a curve. If a
Low­god is with you, they with you. If they not, they not. They can’t do
oth­er­wise. They move to truth, for they fear God more than you then. It’s
been banged into ’em. So if you on the oth­er side of that, shame on you
then. It won’t be good then, in your deal­ings with ’em.”
Here she cut off anoth­er bite of pie, raised it, eyed it, cut a slow glance at
Fat­ty to see if he had any fur­ther ques­tions, and once she was sat­is­fied he
had none, she con­tin­ued.
“I come to Pennhurst like this: A lady on the Row named Lav­erne got
hired to sweep out the bag­gage and cheer up the tide out there. She gived
word on the Row they was look­ing for peo­ple to do what she did, so I went
over and got hired. There was already a bunch of Low­gods work­ing there.
The white folks out there ain’t aller­gic to col­ored, not for what they want us
to do. Did I say I cleaned? I cleaned from that day to this. But what I clean.
That is the ques­tion.”
She glanced around the room and con­tin­ued.
“Pennhurst is a city. Thir­ty-four build­ings spread over two hun­dred
acres. It’s got its own pow­er plant. Its own farm. Its own police. Got its own
rail­road, hous­es, stock­yards, cloth­ing fac­to­ry, farm ani­mals, trac­tors, trucks,
wag­ons, wards, every­thing. It’s big­ger than all of Hem­lock Row and
Chick­en Hill togeth­er. It looks right clean and pret­ty on the out­side. But on
the inside, well … that’s where the dev­il does his work.”
She put down her fork and took a sip of cof­fee.
“I can’t say that in these past years I’ve walked out of Pennhurst on any
giv­en day not wish­ing that the Good Lord would press His fin­ger upon the
place and crum­ble it to dust and take the poor souls in there home to His
heart, for many of ’em’s the finest peo­ple you’d ever want to meet. Their
ill­ness is not in their minds, or in the col­or of their skin, or in the despair in
their heart, or even in the mon­ey that they may or may not have. Their
ill­ness is hon­esty, for they live in a world of lies, ruled by those who
sur­ren­dered all the good things that God gived them for mon­ey, liv­ing on
stolen land, tak­en from peo­ple whose spir­its dance all around us like ghosts.
I hear the red man hol­ler­ing and chant­i­ng in my dreams some­times. This is
my pun­ish­ment for being an ora­cle. For those locked up at Pennhurst, it’s
too much. The truth has dri­ven them mad. And for that, they are pun­ished.
“What I seen is not fit for any per­son to see. It’s not the filth, or the
buck-naked folks run­ning about bang­ing their heads on the wall, or even the
smell, which stays in your nose for the rest of your life. A yard dog liv­ing
on a chain is bet­ter off than any poor soul liv­ing in Pennhurst. You ain’t
seen suf­fer­ing till you seen forty grown peo­ple set­ting around a day room
all day long for years, claw­ing to get a glimpse out the win­dow. Or seen a
full-grown edu­cat­ed man pee­ing on a radi­a­tor while pre­tend­ing to be a radio
announc­er because he’s afraid to ask an atten­dant to go to the bath­room, or
a teenag­er girl wheedling a grown man atten­dant for a cig­a­rette by show­ing
him her pri­vate parts. I seen women locked in soli­tary in strait­jack­ets for
days at a time out there, locked in so tight that when you pulls the jack­et
off, the marks left behind last the rest of their lives, which some­times ain’t
that long.
“On the wards, the atten­dants run every­thing. They can restrain a patient
long as they want, for hours or days or even weeks, so long as they write in
the log­book exact­ly how long they done it. They restrained this poor
woman for six hun­dred fifty-one hours and twen­ty min­utes. I hap­pens to
know the woman, and if I was in charge, I would put those that done that to
her in the strait­jack­et and give her the key. And were I not a God-fear­ing
woman, I’d give that woman a lit­tle bit of my own body dirt to toss at them
that done that to her, along with what­ev­er she could come up with, for some
of them atten­dants are evil some­things. They got to watch their points,
some of them. Because a lot of them patients, they do not for­get.”
With that, Miggy paused and looked about the room. “Have I giv­en you
some­thing to chew on?”
Paper nod­ded. “You have. But … we …”
“You need to hear more about my life?”
“Yes. Tell us more about your … can you tell us about the chil­dren in
your life?”
“I got none.”
“Oth­er chil­dren you might have seen? Or know.”
“It ain’t the chil­dren, hon­ey. It’s the doc­tors. They’re most­ly for­eign­ers.
You can’t make heads or tails of what they say. They come round the wards
from time to time, rec­om­mend this or that med­i­cine, scratch a few things
down on a pad, and go away. A month lat­er they’re gone and a dif­fer­ent
doc­tor comes back and he don’t know what the first has done. Nobody gets
pun­ished for noth­ing. There’s mules on Hem­lock Row that live bet­ter than
folks out there at Pennhurst.”
And here she sighed, then said, “But you wan­na know about the
chil­dren.”
“Yes,” Paper said.
Miggy nod­ded. “All right then. I’ll tell you about a child I knowed. But
first, gimme anoth­er slice of that pie.”
—
AFTER RECEIVING HER sec­ond slice of pie, Miggy slid it toward her­self, but
instead of eat­ing it, she sat back, fold­ed her fin­gers togeth­er, and con­tin­ued.
“There was a lit­tle boy once, nice lit­tle fel­la, a white boy, ’bout eleven or
twelve. He quacked like a duck. Couldn’t speak a lick. I don’t know what
his prob­lem was on the inside, but he was a smart child oth­er than he
quacked like a duck. He didn’t do noth­ing wrong on God’s green earth that
I could see oth­er than he quiv­ered and shook a lot when he walked and
didn’t know how to speak prop­er. His par­ents seed there wasn’t noth­ing
they could do for him, I reck­on, and dropped him off there and didn’t come
back. Nev­er came to vis­it him once in all the time he was there.
“Well, he didn’t like that, and after a while, he made a fuss about stay­ing
there, and before you know it, they dropped him down from the high­er
wards to what they call the low wards. V‑1, 2, and 3. And final­ly C‑1. Them
V wards is bad. But C‑1 is the worst. He went from bad to worse down
there. Went from the worst to the very worst when he got to C‑1.
“He was a smart lit­tle thing, quick—a fun­ny child. Liked to smile. Well,
I took to him and looked in on him when I was down there on C‑1 work­ing
and clean­ing. At first, he was all right. But after a few weeks, I seen
some­thing gone wrong with him. Some­body had been at him. I don’t work
the night shift, and they only sent me down to C‑1 once a week in the
morn­ings, but I’d always look in on him and I could see it when I come to
him. This is in the morn­ing now, for I don’t work at night—but I seen he
was afraid of this one atten­dant. Every time that man come close to him,
he’d shriv­el up. He took to run­ning behind me.
“Now I knew this fel­la, this atten­dant. Knowed him well. And he’s rough
work. So I tried to stay clear of it. But the boy was doing so bad, I couldn’t
stand it no more after a while. So I told the feller, ‘You watch your­self. I’m
watch­ing you. Remem­ber, I tell futures. And your future ain’t bright.’
“What I done that for? This feller made it hell for me down there. He
was a Low­god, see. One of us. I knowed him from the time he was a boy.
He’s a grown man now. A big, strong young fel­la. Calls his­self Son of Man.
I won’t both­er to call out his real name, for it’s a blight to his par­ents and a
shame to them. He’s a good-look­ing man, a pret­ty feller. He could have his
way with all the girls he want­ed. But his mind is twist­ed.
“He made it hell for me down there. He got the white folks drummed up
against me, telling them lies this way and that, for he’s a smooth talk­er. And
one day when I got on him about going after that young­ster, he bug­gied up
to me, sneaked up on me one day when I was in a broom clos­et, pushed in
close, got tight on me, say­ing, ‘If you open your mouth wrong again, I’ll
jam a knife down your throat. I’ll send the wind whistling through your
neck.’
“Well, I let off him then. There was an evil to him when he touched me.
It was strong in him, and it made me afraid. Weren’t no use com­plain­ing or
telling the white folks. He got the run of things down there. The white
boss­es love him on account of his size and his tongue, for he is a smooth-
talk­ing dev­il. But when they ain’t look­ing, he runs them patients and the
oth­er atten­dants like a gang. He works the evening and overnight shifts,
some­times both, for he’s a king down there. He got the run of that ward.
Every patient there will do what­ev­er he says, white and col­ored. They will
turn on each oth­er for him. They’ll steal for him. They’re ter­ri­fied of him—
and they ough­ta be, for he’ll send his knife ram­bling or, even worse, turn
’em around so they hurt their own selves, hang them­selves and so forth.
He’s a walk­ing witch. Got nerve enough to call his­self Son of Man. Son of
the dev­il is what he is.”
At that point, she turned to Nate. “I’m won­der­ing if it’s God’s pur­pose
that you might be both­ered with all this. Maybe that’s the rea­son behind it,
to make you come back. Is you com­ing home?”
Nate looked at Addie.
“I am home,” he said.
—
AFTER SHE PAUSED and took a drink of water, Miggy’s pie lay untouched, but
she con­tin­ued.
“The patients at Pennhurst love me when they see me, for I under­stands
’em. They’re like every­body else. They want to live. They want to be
hap­py. They want friends. And when it come to fol­low­ing nature’s ways,
lov­ing and all, they’re sick but they’re not that sick. This evil, rot­ten man
gived it to the duck boy in the worst way. They had to put that child in the
hos­pi­tal behind what that twist­ed ras­cal done. He ripped that boy up inside,
and when the boy was done heal­ing, he turned a few screws so them white
folks got the excuse to send the child right back to the same ward, so he
could tear up that lit­tle sprout some more.
“Well, I couldn’t stand it. But me talk­ing to doc­tors and nurs­es about
things, I’d have bet­ter luck talk­ing to that wall over there than to get them
to lis­ten to me. So I prayed on it, and don’t you know, a few weeks lat­er that
lit­tle duck boy went miss­ing.”
And here she looked at Nate and began cut­ting into the sec­ond piece of
pie. She cut it care­ful­ly into pieces, then said, “If you was a mouse and
there was a cat about and you want­ed to get out this way, would you take
this route here?”
And she point­ed to a tiny alley in one piece of pie she had cut.
“Or this route here?” And she point­ed to an open­ing near a sec­ond piece
on the oth­er side of her plate.
“I think you’d want to go that way,” she said care­ful­ly, point­ing with her
fork to her orig­i­nal piece. “But being that way is blocked, you might want
to go here.”
She hov­ered her fork over the pieces and shift­ed them around a bit,
draw­ing a map. “Now, to get out this way,” she said, point­ing, “you’d have
to pass this, this, and this. So that’s no good. So where would the mouse go?
Know­ing that the cat is near­by and he ain’t got but so much time ’fore that
cat hunts him down, and know­ing there ain’t but one way out, which is
here”—she point­ed at the top of her plate—“that’s the way out. What’s he
gonna do? He got to move.”
She con­sid­ered this. “Well, that mouse could … eat his way through this
big piece of pie, and that piece, and that piece, but by the time he got here,
here, and here, all the oth­er mice, they’d be on him, fol­low­ing behind him,
mak­ing noise and all, because it’s crowd­ed in pie coun­try, with lots of oth­er
mice that wants out, plus there’s cats and all. Your mouse can’t fly. He can’t
go over the top … but …”
And here she laid her fork in a direct line from her large piece of pie to
the crust’s edge over sev­er­al of the pie pieces cut to rep­re­sent build­ings,
where she indi­cat­ed an exit.
“If the mouse could tun­nel from the large piece of pie here, he could
make a straight line to the get-out door. Then he’d be home free in no time.”
She placed the fork down, glanced at Nate, fold­ed her hands, and rest­ed
her elbows on the table. With her hands fold­ed before her face, she spoke
slow­ly.
“There’s tun­nels all about Pennhurst. Miles of ’em. They used ’em in the
old days to car­ry food and sup­plies and even coal from the old pow­er­house
dur­ing win­ter­time. Most of ’em ain’t been used in years. Big emp­ty tun­nels.
Lots of ’em. Going every which­away.”
She slid the plate with the pie pieces away from her and con­tin­ued.
“They moved heav­en and earth try­ing to find that lit­tle duck boy when
he went miss­ing. Looked all over. Couldn’t find him. Some­body said they
heard quack­ing from what might be a tun­nel beneath Ward C‑1 where the
boy had maybe escaped from. But nobody knows for sure if there real­ly is a
tun­nel below C‑1, for it’s one of the old­er build­ings, far from the main
build­ings. They say the boy migh­ta got out that way, for the rumor is that if
there’s a tun­nel below C‑1, it leads out to the rail­road yard that was used in
the old days to bring coal to the old fur­nace house. The old fur­nace house is
right next to C‑1. They don’t use it no more. They built a new fur­nace
build­ing on the west side of the cam­pus. So he might’a gone that way, if
there was a tun­nel there. But who knows? Nobody at that hos­pi­tal knows.
Who­ev­er built them tun­nels is long gone. You’d have to be a brave soul,
you’d need God on your shoul­der, to even think of walk­ing through one of
them old tun­nels any­way.”
She sighed and sipped her cof­fee.
“They nev­er did find that boy. They looked for him awhile, then said,
‘Well, he’s prob­a­bly dead, wan­dered off, or mur­dered maybe, who knows.’
Or …”
She paused and a sly smile crossed her face.
“I gived this a lot of thought,” she said. “I got to think­ing. I said, ‘Now
how could a lit­tle ol’ boy who don’t even know how to speak for his­self,
who quacks like a duck, how could he fig­ure out how to get out them
tun­nels?’ Some­body said, ‘He prob­a­bly got a map.’ But nobody’s ever
mapped them tun­nels. They made them tun­nels a hun­dred years ago when
Pennhurst was new. Then they added new build­ings piece­meal, one at a
time, one tun­nel here, anoth­er there, clos­ing ’em off, open­ing ’em up here
and there, the tun­nels going every which­away. Most of ’em are closed off,
I’m told, except the ones near the admin­is­tra­tion build­ing. So how could a
lil ol’ boy know them tun­nels? Impos­si­ble.
“But if he did know them tunnels”—she point­ed at the pie plate—“he’d
know that the tun­nel under this build­ing here”—she point­ed to the biggest
piece of the pie—“was the north sec­tion of Pennhurst where the
admin­is­tra­tion build­ing and hos­pi­tal are. And the tun­nel under this one”—
she point­ed again—“would let you out to a man­hole on the west where
there’s noth­ing but woods and nobody can escape there because it’s been
tried many times. And this”—she point­ed to the far cor­ner where her fork
was—“is Ward C‑1, where he was, which if there was a tun­nel, it would
take him to this”—she point­ed to the edge of her plate, con­not­ing an exit
—“the rail­road yard.
“He could have made it out that way. To the rail­road track. And then
walked two miles on the track to the road and got picked up by a bug­gy, or
a car, or a horse and cart. Or maybe even hopped on one of the train cars
that hauls goods in and out­ta the hos­pi­tal once a week.”
She shrugged. “But how could he? He was but a child. And you’d have
to real­ly know those tun­nels.”
“Who would know those tun­nels?” Fat­ty asked.
Miggy shrugged.
“Then why you wast­ing air talk­ing on ’em?” Fat­ty said.
“Because of eggs.”
“What?”
“Eggs.”
“What’s eggs got to do with the tun­nels?”
She looked at Fat­ty for a long moment and smiled serene­ly. “That’s the
dif­fer­ence between the col­oreds on the Hill and us on the Row. We believe
in God like ya’ll do. We pins our hope on Jesus just like you. But on the
Row, we is con­nect­ed by a past that we has been trained to believe in
whether we likes it or not. When we go to church, we prays not just to God,
but to the ones who come before us, from a land far dis­tant, who speak to us
in ways that we don’t under­stand but still believe in. For us, every­thing in
life—all God’s crea­tures and things—is con­nect­ed. Here on the Hill, y’all
just scream and shout.”
She turned to Fat­ty. “Eggs got every­thing to do with tun­nels. Every­thing
got every­thing to do with every­thing.”
—
IT WAS SEVERAL more min­utes before Miggy con­tin­ued, for she had decid­ed
that some more warm cof­fee was need­ed, which Paper quick­ly pro­vid­ed.
After a few sips in silence, with her head thrown back and her eyes closed,
she took a deep breath and con­tin­ued.
“Pennhurst makes its own food,” Miggy said. “They got a farm. The
patients work it. They grow veg­eta­bles of every type out there. Corn, okra,
pota­toes. But the one thing they can’t grow is eggs. Eggs means chick­ens.
For three thou­sand peo­ple, that’s too many chick­ens to look after for a state
hos­pi­tal. You can’t have peo­ple that’s look­ing after the chick­ens when you
got to watch the peo­ple, too. For eggs they got to have them brung in from
out­side.
“There’s an egg farm about two miles north of Pennhurst. Every day that
farm sends a wag­on full of eggs to the hos­pi­tal. Four thou­sand eggs. That’s
a lot of eggs. The man who moves ’em uses a mule and cart. He drop off
eggs and hot cof­fee to every ward in the hos­pi­tal. It’s a great dis­tance
between the wards,” she said, point­ing at the pieces of pie on her plate with
her fork. “The main build­ings here”—she pointed—“where secu­ri­ty and all
is, that’s a good two miles of trail­ing roads from where the low­er wards are.
The new­er build­ings, the admin­is­tra­tion and the hos­pi­tal, they got full
kitchens and cold ice­box­es and all the things they need to warm food and
cook big. But them low­er wards ain’t got hot kitchens in the morn­ing. Only
lunch and din­ner. Well, in the morn­ing, the staff there want the same thing
the folks in big­ger new build­ings get: hot eggs and hot cof­fee. They don’t
want cold eggs and cold cof­fee or the cold por­ridge they serve the patients.
They want to have their own good, hot eggs and cof­fee for break­fast.”
She raised her fork, then stabbed it down into the crust­ed piece of pie at
the far edge of her plate. “Ward C‑1” she said. “That’s Son of Man’s lit­tle
king­dom.” Then she con­tin­ued.
“The feller who runs them eggs from the farm to Pennhurst is a Negro. A
Low­god. He gets hot eggs and cof­fee to every build­ing on the low­er ward
side of Pennhurst by 6 a.m. every morn­ing. That’s four­teen build­ings.
Imag­ine that. Must be four miles of run­ning up and down hills, tak­ing
stairs, upstairs to this kitchen, down to that one. How does he get them hot
scram­bled eggs and hot cof­fee to four­teen build­ings when they’re so far
apart, him hav­ing all them eggs and cof­fee in place by 6 a.m.? A car
couldn’t move that fast up and down them roads, going around cor­ners,
tak­ing stairs to the sec­ond floor in this ward and out the next. Not even on
the sun­ni­est day with the clear­est road could a car do it. And in win­ter when
there’s snow? All them build­ings? All that dis­tance? Been doing it for
thir­ty-six years, too. How’s he do it so fast? You’d need God to move that
fast. Or tun­nels. That’s my think­ing.”
Nate spoke. “Do you know him?”
Miggy shrugged and said cool­ly, “I told you I’d talk about my life, not
go to the pen­i­ten­tiary for you. But I reck­on some­one here might have met
him a day or two past.”
And here she glanced at Paper and let that sink in, then con­tin­ued.
“Now I heard—it’s been said—that my lit­tle quack­ing friend got abused
by Son of Man so bad that some­body felt sor­ry for him and put him onto
the man who runs them eggs in his egg cart, who took him through one of
them tun­nels right under Ward C‑1 where Son of Man lurks, and got him to
that rail­road yard. And from there, some of them rail­road fel­las, them union
Jews who likes to raise hell, put him on one of them freight trains to New
York with a paper sack full of food and twen­ty dol­lars, and they say that
boy’s been in New York City quack­ing like a duck ever since.”
“What about that fel­la you spoke of?” Nate asked. “Is he still there?”
“Son of Man is yet there, I am sor­ry to say. And while I keeps off his
ward these days, I heard a new boy has come to his ward three weeks ago.
A Negro child. Deaf and maybe dumb. Don’t know if he can talk or not.
But I heard the boy was hurt some kind of way. They had him in trac­tion.
He’s bet­ter now, I’m told. Healed up. His casts is off, from what I hear.
Which can­not be good for him.”
A cone of silence worked its way into the room. Final­ly, Nate spoke. “Is
you done with that pie?” he asked Miggy.
“I am,” she said.
Nate slid the plate over and stared at it. It was a dia­gram. Of build­ings,
roads, and walk­ways. He stud­ied it close­ly, then closed his eyes, as if
mem­o­riz­ing it.
“Eat that pie or give it to me,” Paper said. “Don’t waste it.”